Better living through empiricism

theory

July 21, 2014

Journey, by thatgamecompany, has already been well considered by adoring critics, but we wanted to briefly interrupt our travelogue to give our impressions. I played it for the first time on Saturday and had a chance to watch Kate play last year. We both loved it. One playthrough is about the length of a film and the name is quite accurate; the game is a pilgrimage through wondrous and at times frightening lands towards the glowing mountaintop on the horizon. There are challenges to unravel, secrets to find, and threats to avoid. However, they are all minimalistic to focus on the core themes of the game and make it accessible even to those often neglected by high profile video game releases.

So does it even qualify as a game? Yes, for two reasons. First, Michael Abbott argues that the mechanics serve the aesthetic and help the player achieve flow, a meditative sort of enjoyment that videogames are well-suited to deliver. In addition, on a less theoretical level as Jason Killingworth discussed the jumping is just delightful.

“Psychology has proven that the behavior of our physical body directly impacts our emotional state. Test subjects who were tricked into arranging their facial muscles in the shape of a smile were more likely to claim to find a cartoon amusing. In the same way, a game that effectively imparts a sense of physically lifting off the ground will engender in the player a sympathetic emotional response of uplift and inspiration. Journey’s leap has a frolicking grace to it. Not only do you lift into the air, but your character will occasionally even twirl playfully like a sea otter before drifting back to earth. You may even grin while doing it.”

Going into a little more detail, your character can make small jumps just by navigating the world, but with the power of their elongating scarf or the help of the various friendly fabric creatures that inhabit this stricken land, you can for a time bound into the air. Your ability to do this is limited by geography and the charge on your scarf, but in either case is readily charged by visiting with the wildlife or spending time close to your traveling companion. In this way, the leaping is moderated but unlike power pellets or a time-based recharge, the way to replenish the power ties you closer to the world and your companions.

The companions are where the real wonder of the game comes in. After the first stage, you will often be paired with another player, elsewhere on the internet, but given only the most rudimentary means of communication. Perhaps surprisingly, this results in interaction that is entirely different than the hostility that too often defines online interaction. This was entirely intentional. Jenova Chen, one of the designers, discussed his influences and motivations with Simon Parker of Eurogamer.

"I believe that there are only three ways to create valuable games for adults. You can do it intellectually, whereby the work reveals a new perspective about the world that you have not seen before. The closest thing I can see to this is Portal. The second way is emotionally: touching someone. You can touch kids emotionally very easily, but it's far harder to touch adults because they are so jaded.

"The only way you can touch an adult is by creating something especially relevant to their lives, or by creating something that is so authentic that it becomes empowering. In order to reach those heights you have to reach catharsis. So that after the strong emotion the adult can begin to reflect on his own, start to find meaning in his own life. That's how I can see I can make games for people around me. The third and final way is by creating a social environment where the intellectual or emotional stimulation could happen from other people. Those are the only three ways."

Earlier in the piece, he noted that that third piece is often challenging because most multiplayer videogames are about killing one another. It’s well worth reading the entire piece, about how they choose to take out many of the puzzles, elaborate interactions, and even collision detection while working to reinforce the loneliness of the places.

April 21, 2011

By the end of my trip to China, I was starting to pick up the ability to walk away. That was a skill I put to use with mixed success in Cairo. On the first day, we were stuck way out of town and our guide mentioned hitting a local mall as something to do within free time. I checked with the travel service at the desk about getting a ride their and back and their price was nowhere close to the $4-5 each way that my guide had mentioned. I got them down from 300 (~$50) Egyptian to 150 Egyptian (~$25) and was offering 100 Egyptian ($17) which was probably still too high but an acceptable markup for something to do. They told me to go talk to the taxis outside, and we failed to reach an agreement.

I'm fairly satisfied with that outcome, although my counter price should have been lower. I think they also may just honestly charge more than my guide thought when it comes to the pickup on the way back. I ended up swimming a bit, prepping my room, and checking out the hotel instead. I also exploited my two paid for meals and skipped getting a lunch. In the Cairo section, I actually overdid it a bit on the free food. By the time I left I was better knew my limits.

I did no other shopping of note in Cairo, sadly my subsequent bargaining experience have been les impressive.

There are some signs that religious Americans have become more
tolerant of those who hold different religious views. But by no means
has religious intolerance faded away.

That’s the conclusion of a new report by James Gibson, based on a
national survey he conducted in 2007. (For an extended overview of the
results, click here.)
In brief, based on survey respondents’ answers to a series of
questions, Gibson created an index of “religious traditionalism,” some
defining characteristics of which are frequent attendance at religious
services and belief in God and the devil. The respondents were also
asked about their willingness to deny one or more political rights
(e.g., to give speeches, hold demonstrations, and run for public
office) to atheists...

Gibson speculates that the link between religious traditionalism and
political intolerance may “become more serious for American politics in
the future,” not less so... "Future research should therefore focus on methods by which all
citizens — religionists included — can be persuaded to value tolerance
more highly.”

Absent changing the mind of religious traditionalists, I think Gibson's speculation was confirmed by a recent survey. 15% (up from 8% in 1990) of the population now says they have no religion meanwhile the rising numbers calling themselves born again or evangelical might indicate a rise in those hewing towards religious conservatism. I don't think most of those holding no religion will mirror the desire to restrict the organization rights of the religious, although that would be an interesting study to see. Even if it isn't mirrored, I think Douthat is right to suggest that the survey indicates that the culture war is likely to get hotter in the near future.

However, what I really would like to see is this study done for ideology the restrictions that fanatics are willing to put on athiests, "to give speeches, hold demonstrations, and run for public
office," have been deployed against political groups before. In America that sort of thing has been done to socialists, let alone communists. Of course in Germany, such rules are presently employed against neo-Nazis. Their reasons are understandable but doing exluding anyone from participation, rather than vehemently out-competing them, runs against liberal pluralistic ideals. Not saying Germany is necessarily wrong here, just that I think the burden of proof for that sort of policy should be very high.

I wonder whether ideologues feel this as strongly as religious traditionalists. I wonder which systems of belief are most prone to it. Is it consisitently mirrored or does it sometimes hold on only one side? This issue is truly vital in young democracies but I don't think it's fully understood even in the developed world.

October 31, 2008

I’ve been watching an interesting fight between libertarian Will Wilkinson and conservative Ross Douthaht. They’re fighting over Jonathan Haidt’s concept of five pillars of morality: harm/care; fairness/reciprocity; in-group; authority; and purity. Liberals tend to like the first two, conservatives go for all five. Wilkinson gives a great quick summary of Haidt’s larger argument:

As Jon notes, many liberals wonder why the in-group, authority, and purity dimensions of the moral sense count as moral at all. Why doesn’t harm/care and fairness/reciprocity just exhaust the moral field? With characteristic ecumenism, Jon cautions us against underestimating the function of the conservative sentiments in a successful society. “The great conservative insight,” Jon says, “is that order is really hard to achieve, it’s really precious, and really ready to lose.”

The lesson, it seems to me, is that it is dangerous to become too thoroughly liberal, for that way chaos lies. What Jon needs to show is that there is a threshold on the conservative channels of the moral equalizer below which social stability is threatened. In the talk, he barely gestures toward evidence to this effect... Indeed, my sense is that the societies in which the space between high liberal settings and low conservative settings is the greatest–that is, the most imbalanced–are by and large the best places for human beings to live...

If the conservative dimensions are so important, Jon needs to explain why the people of the advanced market democracies are so much more liberal than they used to be, so much less conservative, and yet so much less disordered (i.e., less violence, less war, etc.)...

But I think he’s making a mistake if he think his work points toward the importance of the conservative sentiments. It’s pointing me toward a clearer grasp of the ecological conditions under which those sentiments are functional and adaptive. And we aren’t in them.

Anyhow, I’m not a libertarian, I tend to think there is some utility in in-group and authority although I certainly thing they’re far less important than harm-care or fairness. However, I do agree with Wilkinson on Purity. I think purity has a few uses: preventing self-harm, avoiding getting on a slippery slope for harming others, avoiding disease and food poisoning, and . However, the first two are just functions of harm/care and can be treated as such. The third is where the evolutionary advantage of purity comes in, but we have science now to tell us what’s actually healthy, it’s time to put away childish things.

To be fair to conservatives, Haidt does note that liberals can go for purity when it comes to organic food or not watching television or such. When these things have a basis in health, fine; but I’m quite willing to say that while it’s fine to argue about what we should eat or watch, don’t get self-righteous about it. Most of us have our guilty pleasures and in moderation that’s fine.

Interestingly, I think Christianity makes a partial break with purity rules. Jesus is constantly breaking purity restrictions, sometimes even foolishly so; sorry Jesus, but we should actually wash our hands before eating. Not a moral thing, but a good idea nonetheless. I think a lot of Christian theology gets at the idea that none of us is really pure, so we should stop judging others for lack of purity. However, Jesus as the perfect sacrificial lamb brings those issues back to the fore. I should also note that I’ve heard that the Gospel depiction of Judaism’s purity rules in practice is rather exaggerated.

Anyways, my main response is that free will at this point is a bundle of concepts, some useful, some outdated. I think the general shape of this bundle is actually pretty well determined: are we a blank state? are we controlled by our environment? can we control our own fate? is there a soul or a mini-me making decisions? is human behavior deterministic or random? To which I say meh. Some of these are interesting, some are not. Bundling them together just makes it harder to discuss it nowadays without getting into centuries old arguments with no real grounding in science. This bundle can work out alright theologically or dramatically but outside of those contexts it obscures more than it reveals.

So I’m laying down my arms in this fight. This bundle is not worth fighting for or fighting over. As one of the commentators put it, "free will" isn’t falsifiable.

I’d say the same thing is true when talking about whether religion is a good thing or a bad thing. I think that tends to be the wrong unit of analysis. Better to focus on concepts that show up in some religions as well as some secular movements, such as "those who do not share my doctrine deserve punishment." I think it’s safe to say that said idea has caused much more harm than good and that it’s possible to get along fine without it. There’s a reason things legal codes tend to be based on actions and not beliefs. That said, I’m not looking to punish people who hold such a doctrine.

March 12, 2008

Harry Brighouse over at Crooked Timber has an interesting post about how he, as an atheist, can respect religious people. He contrasts this view to that of Simon Blackburn who argues that it’s possible to tolerate religious people but not to respect them on that particular point. I found Brighouse’s criteria rather useful:

The condition is something like this. It is possible to respect someone’s holding of a false belief if you believe that the person is someone of good will, and who has deliberated carefully, and honestly holds the belief given their non-irresponsible reflection on that deliberation and their personal experience.

Brighouse suggests this criteria can apply both to difference over religious belief and to political differences. The only area I might disagree with Brighouse is over the question of self-interest. I tend to think that self-interest has a legitimate role to play in forming ones political beliefs. We’re often better equipped than even a benevolent outside to know what we want. However, Brighouse may just be rejecting self-interest unleavened by sincere reflection, so I’m not sure we disagree.

Regardless, pluralism doesn’t require that we all respect each other, but I think the possibility of respect across religious and political divisions is necessary. While there are now more prominent militant atheists, on the whole I tend to think those without religion have taken a good deal more disrespect than those with. I hope these sorts of discussions are a prologue to atheists being better incorporated into American philosophical pluralism.

[Reene raises a good point in comments. I failed to make clear that the debaters both agree that you can respect someone who you think holds wrong opinions. You may just tolerate that particular belief. It’s a fair question as to whether we need to actually respect the other sides’ specifics belief for pluralism to work or just to respect them as people.]

March 10, 2008

There’s a political science technique called rational choice theory. Essentially it treats people as ’utility’ maximizing units and then tries to calculate how they’ll behave. This can tie into a lot of game theory with specific games like the prisoners dilemma and chicken. Anyways even those that use rational choice theory note that while it can be useful, it certainly doesn’t capture the full range of human behavior.

I think a key part of what it leaves out is allegorical thinking. This may include cultural rules, religious ones, and various other stylized assumptions about how the world works. Moreover, I think that’s okay. Morale, faith, and various other less than rational sentiments can provide and edge in performance or society building. That said, there are obviously a lot of downsides, see religious wars and the spam in your inbox.

Anyways, this was prompted a bit by those recent fake memoir scandals and an interview with pan-religious theologian Karen Armstrong. Armstrong argued that outside of the last few centuries, nobody took most religious texts as literal facts. While I certainly buy that fundamentalism is a more recent movement, I’m highly dubious of that statement. It seems much more plausible to me that people’s ability to solidly differentiate between fact and allegory probably was tied to the development of the scientific method. It’s also not a new idea that perhaps these days a lot of people want more allegory but instead go seeking extraordinaire facts and implausible memoirs.

Anyhow, allegory can be a tough beast to pin down. Its utility varies from person to person, culture to culture, and age to age. I don’t think there is a simple way to integrate it into rational choice theory or that sort of thing. Heck a widely publicized study of allegory may change their utility. That said, I think it’s important to not just evaluate allegories as factual or not, but to analyze them as whether they are useful and whether they accurately describe human nature.

Moreover, I don’t think this is just something that needs to be done for the masses while a rational elite can dispose of them altogether. I tend to think Holden Caulfield is right, we’re can all be phonies at times, and going the absolute rationalist path doesn’t tend to lead to that much success in the happiness part of life (although it is of course quite necessary professionally in many fields including my own). In addition, some use this as a reason to bash atheists. I don’t think that holds, being an atheist means you put all the religious and spiritual stuff in the realm of allegory and not fact. That doesn’t mean there won’t necessarily be allegories that appeal to you.

Anyhow, that was rather rambling, but hopefully can be a basis for making points in the future.

One thing that I guess I could have learned just pondering the world from my chair but that I don’t think I really understood until I went to the Netherlands and talked to people involved in politics there is the extent to which the "new atheism" -- which is mostly like the old atheism but involves people acting like jerks -- is specifically bound up with some problematic anti-Muslim sentiments. Previously, things like this Christopher Hitchens column bashing Hanukkah had struck me as merely weird...

In Europe, though, the face of "religion" is increasingly Islam whereas elements of the secular consensus are part of a national identity that elements of the right can embrace. It was explained to me, for example, that one thing Dutch people worry about when they worry about Muslim immigrants is that socially conservative Muslim immigrants might spoil their same-sex partnership law. I joked that conservatives should love immigration, then. But in reality the forces of indigenous religious conservatism are way too weak for anything like that to happen. So instead of a system of cross-currents, where both a cosmopolitan left and a traditionalist right find something to admire about growing diversity, you get a substantial block of people pushing against Muslim immigrants from both a secularist and a nationalist perspective.

From the point of view of an American liberal, it’s an awkward situation.

Based on my prior reading and that event on Islam in Europe last week I think Yglesias is missing the main drivers here. In Europe many countries in Europe there’s an underclass that often turns to fundamentalist Islam to express their dissent with the status quo. On several occasions, this has led to violent demonstrations, assassinations, and outright terrorist bombings, although the situation varies greatly form country to country. In the U.S. Islam presently is not strongly associated with the underclass, in fact Muslims do better economically than the average American. As a result, we’re able to handle the violence dimension which is really a key driver of the fears he’s talking about.

That said, I think his general analysis holds, it’s just the drivers he’s talking about are of secondary importance.

September 16, 2007

So, here’s a new IR theory for you: Okay, traditional realism is well
expressed in the game Diplomacy.
Everyone out for themselves, there are no permanent alliances, the internal
make-up of a state doesn't really matter. Realism has a lot of problems, but it is a fairly effective
means for measuring hard power and how it shapes interactions and the world
stage.

Sometimes states behavior is broken down on a values versus interest
spectrum.
Values are often associated with ideologies such as liberalism, communism, or
fascism (not all values are good obviously).

Alternately, state behavior can be broken down into hard power and soft
power. Joseph
Nye came up with this idea and has been plugging it ever since. He's
on the board for a new project at CSIS is running called "smart power"
which is about using both types productively. Until a certain level of
independent power is achieved, such groups should be treated as derived
variables.

So, cribbing some from Civilization 3+, I wonder if perhaps a good breakdown
of power and interests would have three categories: military, economic, and
cultural. The more power you have in any of the three areas, the better
able you are to impose your will on the world. (Even if your will is expansion
of democracy or the like). Military power is perhaps the least influenced
by internal structure (hence realism) and culture is the most. Similarly
military power is zero-sum and both culture and economics are positive sum
games. Implications after the jump.